The maintenance of the cleanliness of roadways land walkways has typically been done by personnel using various types of equipment to collect debris and garbage. Initially, debris and garbage was collected manuauly. Over time, various types of devices were developed in order to motorize to job to make such collection easier, faster and overall, more efficient.
Canadian patent 949,707 discloses a motorized mobile vacuum trash collector. The collector comprises a pivoted cylindrical bin mounted to a fame connected to a motorized cart. A retractable lid for the bin is connected to the frame via a spring loaded rangement and is surmounted by a vacuum blower. A flexible hose is supported over an operator's head extending from the frame, with one end of the hose being connected to the lid while the other end is connected to the nozzle. The trash collector is driven like a cart and suffers from the disadvantage that the operator is required to frequently empty the bag of collected trash, or periodically manually compress or compact the trash to allow additional trash to be collected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,235 also discloses a mobile vacuum trash collector which comprises a motorized cart, a frame connected rearwardly to the cart, a bin mounted to the frame, a lid removably connected to the bin and a flexible hose connected to the lid at one end and having a nozzle at the other end. This mobile ash collector has an air permeable bag for collecting the trash which allows for a large quantity of debris to be sucked into the bag and compressed or compacted.
While both of these prior art mobile vacuum ash collectors provide for the collection of garbage, their design is very large and not that easy to maneuver around pedestrians particularly on narrower sidewalks as well as for use in large commercial locations such as airports, amusement parks, shopping malls or warehouses. Furthermore, they do not provide any capacity for the cleaning and filtering of dust and dirt from sidewalks or floors, but rather act to pick up debris and larger garbage.
Sweepers have thus been designed which are smaller and more easy to maneuver than the conventional driven motorized types of garbage collectors and more specifically act not only to collect garbage but also to sweep or clean dirt and dust from the walkways and hard to reach locations where motorized cart do not have easy access. U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,313 discloses a walk behind floor maintenance machine which includes a filter and filter housing that is pivotedly mounted to permit removal of the debris hopper. The filter is cleaned by the vibration of the filter and filter housing which then slides into a hopper. Finally, the hopper is manually removable for emptying.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,426,805 discloses a walk-behind self-propelled sweeper which comprises a main frame including a base portion and a handle portion. A pair of wheels is secured to the base portion for engaging the ground surface, an engine mounted on the base portion, a hydraulic pump carried on the base portion and operably connected to the engine, a first hydraulic motor coupled to the wheels and connected to the hydraulic pump and a second hydraulic motor coupled to the hydraulic pump and connected to an attachment secured to the base portion. Handgrips are provided to operate valves for release of fluid to the respective motors. While such a device does provide for the sweeping of sidewalk and floors, it suffers from the disadvantage that the sweeper is loud, rather clunisy to operate and does not provide for the cleaning of dirt and dust from the surface of floors and walkways without creating dust and also does not allow the simultaneous collection of trash together with dirt and dust.
A walk behind sweeper has been designed and sold by Applied Sweepers Inc. This sweeper can be used either as a walk-behind or as a ride-on and collects garbage and dust by sucking such through a fan system and into a collection means within the sweeper. Another walk behind sweeper is also provided by DANLINE International Ltd. in which garbage and dust is swept through a fin system and into a collection means. While both of these sweepers can be used for cleaning roadways and walkways, they suffer from the disadvantage that large garbage items can damage the fan as they are drawn into and through the fan system prior to collection in a collection bin. This may causes a great deal of damage and wear and tear on the fan system. In addition, garbage can get stuck in the fan system. This limits the types of garbage that can be collected and also increases the work required by the operator. For example, large pieces of wood or metal cannot be collected by suction into the sweeper and must instead be collected by hand. Also, the litter is not compacted within the container and must be frequently compacted or emptied. Furthermore, the sweepers utilize large amounts of water to suppress dust and therefore require large reservoirs of water and as a result, may leave behind mud on swept surfaces.
There is therefore a need to develop a mobile walk-behind sweeper which obviates at least one problem associated with the sweepers of the prior art and can be used to collect all types of garbage and dirt. There is also a need to develop a filtration system which can be utilized in various sweepers to collect dust and help to control dust emission during sweeping and cleaning.